Sunday, May 12, 2013

"Ascension Sunday" - The banal fabrication we call the New Mass

“One of the weaknesses of the postconciliar liturgical
reform can doubtless be traced to the armchair strategy of academics, drawing
up things on paper which, in fact, would presuppose years of organic growth. The most blatant example of this is the
reform of the Calendar: those responsible simply did not realize how much
the various annual feasts had influenced Christian people's relation to time
[…] they ignored a fundamental law of religious life.” Joseph Cardinal
Ratzinger, The Feast of Faith, 81-82 (published by Ignatius Press).

7th
Sunday of Easter, or “Ascension Sunday”

In the years since the Second
Vatican Council, in an effort to make the liturgy more readily acceptable and agreeable
to the people (with the obvious hope that they would grow in devotion and
love for God), there have been a number of changes to the liturgical calendar.
Furthermore, it has also happened that certain adaptations may be employed
either by the local bishops’ conference or by a local bishop himself.

Most of these changes and
possible adaptations have done little to encourage the devotion of the
faithful, but have served only to destroy the little reverence and solemnity
left to the Novus Ordo.

Happily, whatever the bishops
may do to the public prayer of the Church, parents remain the primary leaders
of the domestic church – the family. In this little article, we will discuss a
few of the banalities present in the calendar of the New Mass (there are far
too many to point out in a blog post, but we will mention those most obvious
and egregious).

However, lest this seem a rant (something which is unbecoming of a
member of the clergy and about which no worthy priest would ever boast), we
will conclude with a few thoughts on how to preserve the life of faith in the
home.

Cardinal
Ratzinger – New Mass is “a fabrication, a banal product”

“The liturgical reform, in its concrete realization, has
distanced itself even more from its origin. The result has not been a
reanimation, but devastation. In
place of the liturgy, fruit of a continual development, they have placed a fabricated liturgy. They have
deserted a vital process of growth and becoming in order to substitute a fabrication. They did not want to
continue the development, the organic maturing of something living through the
centuries, and they replaced it, in the manner of technical production, by a fabrication, a banal product of the
moment.” (Ratzinger in Revue Theologisches, Vol. 20, Feb. 1990, pgs. 103-104)

"[W]e have a liturgy which has degenerated so that it
has become a show which, with momentary success for the group of liturgical fabricators, strives to
render religion interesting in the wake of the frivolities of fashion and
seductive moral maxims. Consequently, the trend is the increasingly marked
retreat of those who do not look to the liturgy for a spiritual show-master but
for the encounter with the living God in whose presence all the 'doing' becomes
insignificant since only this encounter is able to guarantee us access to the
true richness of being." (Cardinal Ratzinger's preface to the French
translation of Reform of the Roman Liturgy by Monsignor Klaus Gamber, 1992).

"I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we
are experiencing today is, to a large extent, due to the disintegration of the liturgy." (Milestones: Memoirs
1927-1977)

Christmas
destroyed

Let us consider a few examples
of this banality, this radical disintegration of the liturgical calendar, which
has been perpetrated in the years since Vatican II.

First, look at how the New Mass
has destroyed the season of Christmas. (the following is from an earlier blog
post, which can be found [here])

Msgr. Charles Pope has written a good article [here]
on the havoc wreaked on the Christmas Octave by the Liturgical Renewal. The
feast of the Holy Family (which is a recent invention to begin with [here])
has been transferred to the Sunday which falls in the middle of the Octave of
Christmas –from its creation until 1962, Holy Family was celebrated on the
Sunday after Epiphany, but now that it has been moved into the Christmas Octave
we celebrate the hidden life of Christ (the flight to Egypt and the return to
Nazareth) before we even celebrate the visitation of the Magi! The history of
the events is displaced, and the time is far from sanctified.

Then there is the re-naming of the Octave of Christmas
(January 1st) to “Mary, Mother of God.” Here, I have less a problem than does
Msgr. Pope – the character of the Mass has been focused on our Lady’s Maternity
from ancient times. However, it is quite sad that the Circumcision and Naming
of Jesus has been pushed aside – how is it that, in our present day of
sensitivity to the Jewish religion, the Liturgical Reform has been so
successful in helping us to forget that the Lord himself was a practicing Jew?

Then, of course, there is the horrible custom in so many
parts of the world of transferring the Epiphany from January 6th to the nearest
Sunday – this destroys the twelve days of Christmas. Even setting aside the
fact that there is good reason to believe that the Magi literally came to
Bethlehem on the thirteenth day, the transference of Epiphany is yet another
example of losing the Judaic roots of our Tradition – the Jewish significance
of the number twelve is lost, and so is the sanctification of time.

While it is not explicit in Sacred Scripture, there is an
ancient tradition according to which the wise men (owing partly to the divine
assistance and partly to the speed of dromedaries) traveled a great distance
from a land of the far east to Bethlehem, arriving on the thirteenth day after
Christ’s birth. This gives us the twelve days of Christmas.

Now, while it is certainly not a matter of divine and Catholic
faith that the Magi arrived on January 6th, does it not give us at
least some slight pause when we see ancient traditions dismissed off-handedly? Will
we not lose something of our Catholic identity if we simply change the Mass to
fit our schedule rather than adapting our life to the duty of divine worship?
Can the liturgical calendar which made the saints be replaced with the banal
product of arm-chair experts (some of whom had questionable morals)?

Well, perhaps the bishops see no problem with giving up Christmas
to secular life, but at least parents can rescue the twelve days by keeping the
tree up and placing the star not early in advent but only on Christmas morn. Then
the wise men can begin a journey through the home and arrive at the Nativity
scene on January 6th. Perhaps small gifts could be given for each of
the twelve days, and a larger gift saved till the Epiphany itself. Meanwhile, the
tree and decorations should be kept up through to January 13th (Octave of Epiphany and traditional feast of our Lord's Baptism).

Another
example

In many dioceses throughout the
world, the feast of Corpus Christi is moved from Thursday to Sunday. Little
needs to be said here, except to remind the bishops that the Last Supper was
offered on Thursday. It was the Resurrection which occurred on a Sunday.

Well, I suppose we can be glad
that no one is yet recommending that we begin to honor our Lord’s Resurrection
on a day other than Sunday. Oh, the so-called evening vigil (Canon 1248.1). Hmm …

The
loss of the Pentecost Novena

The Bishops of the United
States, exercising their pastoral prudence and with the blessing of the Holy
See, have chosen to move the solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord to the
following Sunday (thus abrogating the 7th Sunday of Easter).

To this, Sacred Scripture
states:

The former
treatise I made, O Theophilus, of all things which Jesus began to do and to teach,
Until the day on which, giving commandments by the Holy Ghost to the apostles
whom he had chosen, he was taken up. To whom also he shewed himself alive after
his passion, by many proofs, for forty days appearing to them, and speaking of
the kingdom of God. […]And when he had said these things, while they looked on,
he was raised up: and a cloud received him out of their sight. (Acts
of the Apostles 1:1-3,9)

The inerrant and historical Scriptures
tell us that Jesus was with his disciples for precisely forty days after his Resurrection.
That means that he ascended on a Thursday. He was not with his disciples for forty-three
days, but for exactly forty days. To say otherwise would be to deny the truth
of the Bible, it would be a veritable heresy.

Now, the bishops are not
committing heresy, obviously. They are not stating that Jesus ascended on a Sunday,
obviously. They are simply setting aside the venerable tradition and the
Scriptures themselves in the name of “prudence”. Oh, what “prudence” this is!
Saints deliver us from such “prudence”!

What is particularly devastating
about this disintegration of the liturgical calendar is that we lose the novena
from Ascension to Pentecost. If Ascension is celebrated on Sunday, then our “novena”
will be only six days (from Monday to Saturday). When the Ascension is on
Thursday, we gain the true novena (from Friday to the following Saturday).

A
thought for families

However, whatever the bishops
are doing to the Liturgy and to public worship, faithful families everywhere
can preserve the season of Ascensiontide and the Pentecost novena within their
own homes.

Why not offer (at least next year)
a novena to the Holy Spirit? A wonderful novena for the Seven Gifts can be
found at EWTN [here].
You will find a printable version [here].

It might be simpler to say the
Litany to the Holy Ghost each day [here].

Further, we must recall that
the Apostles were gathered around Mary, and we must join her in these days.
Perhaps pray the family Rosary each day, or at least the Litany of the Blessed
Virgin Mary [here].

Wouldn’t Pentecost be a
wonderful time to renew our baptismal promises and recall the graces of our
baptism? Perhaps the novena can incorporate some creative dinner decorations in
preparation for a special celebration of baptism on Pentecost.

Come,
Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful. And enkindle within them the fire
of thy love!

12
comments:

Very nice. I fear however, that the children will still get caught up and never learn deeply the importance of continuing tradition since so much of it has been removed from so many of their religious experiences outside the home.

Although i like this remark: "Will we not lose something of our Catholic identity if we simply change the Mass to fit our schedule rather than adapting our life to the duty of divine worship? Can the liturgical calendar which made the saints be replaced with the banal product of arm-chair experts (some of whom had questionable morals)?"i am confused about whether you thought of the rite of Mass itself in the first question. Because, it's all about the rite of Mass - and all defective things come following the defective rite...

I am not saying that the calendar is not the problem. It is. The ongoing changes are very annoying. But i'm just talking about the source of problems. It is my opinion that the calendar springs from the rite, and not vice versa, and consequently if we deal with the source of the problem we also deal with it's consequences.

A bold post. Thank you, Father. One particular statement stood out to me: "Will we not lose something of our Catholic identity if we simply change the Mass to fit our schedule rather than adapting our life to the duty of divine worship?" I think I will be including that in my future discussions of the topic. Pax.

Some time ago you were arguing (along with Msgr. Pope) about how we were to "stand with our bishops" in obedience. I tried to point out to you just this kind of thing that the bishops do to erode the Faith, and you called me disloyal and disobedient.

http://newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com/2011/10/on-authority-of-bishops-from-st.html"Who can dare to judge his bishop? Whither comes such authority?"

Cassandra,You said that the bishops were betraying the Gospel and failing in their duties as pastors (which is a very general and broad accusation) ... that is a much more dangerous claim.All I have done in this post is quote and defend Cardinal Ratzinger's statements.

Thanks for this article, Father. Many problems the Church faces today can be traced to the introduction of the Novus Ordo, aka the Bugnini created Mass. It's intent was to be palatable to protestants and to reduce the sacrificial nature of the Mass. The endless options and novelties have only served to drive the faithful away from the Church. Holy days of Obligation have largely been marginalized. How does that inculcate the Catholic faith to a disbelieving world? Add the modernist (and downright heretical) theology and it's no wonder why the Catholic faith has practically disappeared in Europe and elsewhere. Conversely, where the TLM has been restored, and sound doctrine is promoted, the Catholic faith is very strong and religious vocations are high. It is far past time to restore the TLM as the ordinary form of the Latin Rite of the Mass and to pray, act, think and evangelize as Catholics, instead of neo-protestants. Again, thank you Father Erlenbush for you excellent exegesis of Scripture. Your theology reflects the timeless beauty of Thomism.

We were told this year that the Magi did not exist. When I asked the priest after Mass if I heard him correctly, he backtracked a bit and said "maybe they did, maybe they didn't, we don't know for sure." I wanted to asked him whose bodies were in the Cathedral in Cologne, but didn't.

Vatican II was a train derailment and the Novus Ordo was the train wreck.

I wish Pope Benedict had NOT resigned. Reading all of these wonderful quotes of his (Cardinal Ratzinger's) only depresses me because Pope Francis has squashed the 'Reform of the Reform' (even if it can be arduged that it was done inadvertently; I know plenty of liberals who are quite emboldened by his pontificate)

Well, I guess I will be the lone naysayer to all this. My only problem with the novus ordo mass is that the music is usually terrible. I see no reason intrinsic to the mass why that should be so, however.

I did attend a Latin mass this Easter after having attended the Easter Vigil mass at my parish because the music was so bad on the whole and because the pastor left out so many readings that I felt ripped off. I attended the Latin mass at a Latin mass parish the next day and it was beautiful, especially the music. The people were reverent and after mass if they wanted to chit-chat, people went outside, instead of blabbing away in the sanctuary as they do in my parish.

The fact is that most people don't want to be reverent anymore and that is why mass is irreverent. It has nothing to do with it being either novus ordo or a Latin mass. The Latin mass is a reverent experience because the people that go there don't want to deal with nonsense at the regular novus ordo parish. They are a self-selected group.

I attended an absolutely beautiful novus ordo mass for Pentecost. The parish has a traditional bent and the music was beautiful as a result. [Not that one thing must cause the other, but it often does.]

All the nonsense that sometimes occurs at a novus ordo mass is the fault of the people there, not the mass itself, in my opinion. The people choose what kind of music they want and what kind of parish they want. The novus ordo mass can be reverent if the people and priests want to be reverent and act in a reverent manner.

If bishops make Thursday a day of holy obligation, more souls will go to hell by their failure to attend than if they transfer the obligation to Sunday. There is not enough seriousness out there in regard to our faith even by practicing Catholics. Bishops have to take this reality into account in their pastoring. I don't see how one can blame this situation on our pastors. I for one do not. We make our own choices; until more of us make different choices, the level of Catholic devotion will remain insufficient to change our culture. Pointing fingers at VII, the new mass, the new calendar, our priests, our bishops, does nothing to change the reality on the ground, in my opinion. All Catholics are baptized, and in the wealthy nations we have more resources for the intellect in order to understand and practice our faith than we would ever be able to apply to our lives.

'Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of Thy Divine love.'

I agree with your observations, and that which was quoted by our pope emeritus. I created a liturgical calendar online according to the extraordinary form http://www.credobiblestudy.com/calendar/en/2013/5/29 , and I was researching how to do the ordinary calendar. In my opinion, one of the issues I see with the new calendar and mass is an overabundance of options. Too many options impacts clarity, and identity.